A one-time candidate for mayor was handcuffed by sheriff's deputies in a judge's courtroom and taken to the Allegheny County Jail on Wednesday.

Common Pleas Judge Anthony Mariani issued an order revoking A.J. Richardson's bond and home electronic monitoring after hearing testimony from Pittsburgh police about 15 nuisance calls to the 911 center that were traced to Richardson's home phone in the span of nearly 24 hours.

The former candidate, his wife and two of their three children, ages 13 and 15, already faced charges in more than 100 previous fake calls to 911 allegedly made from their home in the city's Sheraden neighborhood.

"We have told them we are not the originators of those calls," said Richardson's wife, Felicia. "We don't know where the calls are coming from."

The judge cited a danger to public safety posed by the calls after hearing police testify that several officers had to report to the home after each of the 15 calls, affecting the number of officers available to respond to actual emergencies, including an armed robbery.

Police said the 15 latest nuisance calls to 911 included 13 hangups and two calls in which a childlike voice can be heard screaming. One of the calls in which unintelligible screaming can be heard was played in court as evidence.

Felicia Richardson said she thinks her husband is being framed by someone spoofing their number on caller ID.

"I do think it's actually the police or someone in law enforcement," she said.

"We do not have any evidence, hard evidence, that it was the police doing this to the Richardsons. Anyone could be spoofing at this point," said Felicia Richardson's attorney, Ericka Kreisman.

Why would police frame her husband for making phone calls?

"My husband has been very outspoken, especially in running for mayor, about police brutality," Felicia Richardson said.

A.J. Richardson had come to court Wednesday on his own emergency motion, asking Mariani to modify conditions of his bond requiring electronic home monitoring. His attorney, Elebert Gray, Jr., told the court that Richardson had received an eviction notice and may have to move to a homeless shelter. The Richardsons are behind on their rent because they are out of work.

It was during that hearing that the district attorney's office moved to revoke A.J. Richardson's bond because of the new phone calls.

"There is the presumption of innocence," Gray said. "Merely because you're charged with a crime doesn't mean you're guilty of that crime."

The Richardsons had originally been ordered out of their home by 12 a.m. Friday. They were granted a 30-day delay of the eviction by another judge and are searching for a place to live.

"At this point, there's so much bad blood between the Richardson family and the Pittsburgh police in the West End that our advice to them is to move out of Pittsburgh," Kreisman said.